The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 08 of 12)

Dead foxes, turtles, deer, and pigs treated with ceremonious respect

When the Koryak have killed a fox, they take the body home and lay it down near the fire, saying, “Let the guest warm himself. When he feels warm, we will free him from his overcoat.” So when the frozen carcase is thawed, they skin it and wrap long strips of grass round about it. Then the animal's mouth is filled with fish-roe, and the mistress of the house gashes the flesh and puts more roe or dried meat into the gashes, making believe that the gashes are the fox's pockets, which she thus fills with provisions. Then the carcase is carried out of the house, and the people say, “Go and tell your friends that it is good to visit yonder house. ‘Instead of my old coat, they gave me a new one still warmer and with longer hair. I have eaten my fill, and had my pockets well stored. You, too, go and visit them.’ ” The natives think that if they neglected to observe this ceremonial they would have no luck in hunting foxes.708 When a Ewe hunter of Togoland has killed an antelope of a particular kind (Antilope leucoryx), he erects an enclosure of branches, within which he places the lower jawbones of all the animals he has shot. Then he pours palm-wine and sprinkles meal on the bones, saying, “Ye lower jawbones of beasts, ye are now come home. Here is food, here is drink. Therefore lead your comrades (that is, the living beasts of the forest) hither also.”709 In the Timor-laut islands of the Indian Archipelago the skulls of all the turtles which a fisherman has caught are hung up under his house. Before he goes out to catch another, he addresses himself to the skull of the last turtle that he killed, and having inserted betel between its jaws, he prays the spirit of the dead animal to entice its kinsfolk in the sea to come and be caught.710 In the Poso district of central Celebes hunters keep the jawbones of deer and wild pigs which they have killed and hang them up in their houses near the fire. Then they say [pg 245] to the jawbones, “Ye cry after your comrades, that your grandfathers, or nephews, or children may not go away.” Their notion is that the souls of the dead deer and pigs tarry near their jawbones and attract the souls of living deer and pigs, which are thus drawn into the toils of the hunter.711 Thus in all these cases the wily savage employs dead animals as decoys to lure living animals to their doom.

Ghost of ostrich outwitted

The Lengua Indians of the Gran Chaco love to hunt the ostrich, but when they have killed one of these birds and are bringing home the carcase to the village, they take steps to outwit the resentful ghost of their victim. They think that when the first natural shock of death is passed, the ghost of the ostrich pulls himself together and makes after his body. Acting on this sage calculation, the Indians pluck feathers from the breast of the bird and strew them at intervals along the track. At every bunch of feathers the ghost stops to consider, “Is this the whole of my body or only a part of it?” The doubt gives him pause, and when at last he has made up his mind fully at all the bunches, and has further wasted valuable time by the zigzag course which he invariably pursues in going from one to another, the hunters are safe at home, and the bilked ghost may stalk in vain round about the village, which he is too timid to enter.712

Esquimau propitiation of the spirit who controls reindeer. Ceremonious treatment of sea-beasts by the Esquimaux

The Esquimaux of the Hudson Bay region believe that the reindeer are controlled by a great spirit who resides in a large cave near the end of Cape Chidley. The outward form of the spirit is that of a huge white bear. He obtains and controls the spirit of every reindeer that is slain or dies, and it depends on his good will whether the people shall have a supply of reindeer or not. The sorcerer intercedes with this great spirit and prevails on him to send the deer to the hungry Esquimaux. He informs the spirit that the people have in no way offended him, since he, the sorcerer, has taken great care that the whole of the meat was eaten up, [pg 246] and that last spring, when the does were returning to him to drop their young, none of the little or embryo fawns were devoured by the dogs. After long incantations the magician announces that the patron of the deer condescends to supply the Esquimaux with the spirits of the animals in a material form, and that soon there will be plenty in the land. He charges the people to fall on and slay and thereby win the approval of the spirit, who loves to see good folk enjoying themselves, knowing that so long as the Esquimaux refrain from feeding their dogs with the unborn young, the spirits of the dead reindeer will return again to his watchful care. The dogs are not allowed to taste the flesh, and until the supply is plentiful they may not gnaw the leg-bones, lest the guardian of the deer should take offence and send no more of the animals. If, unfortunately, a dog should get at the meat, a piece of his tail is cut off or his ear is cropped to let the blood flow.713 Again, the Central Esquimaux hold that sea-mammals, particularly whales, ground-seals, and common seals, sprang from the severed fingers of the goddess Sedna, and that therefore an Esquimau must make atonement for every such animal that he kills. When a seal is brought into the hut, the woman must stop working till it has been cut up. After the capture of a ground seal, walrus, or whale they must rest for three days. Not all sorts of work, however, are forbidden, for they may mend articles made of sealskin, but they may not make anything new. For example, an old tent cover may be enlarged in order to build a larger hut, but it is not allowed to make a new one. Working on new deerskins is strictly forbidden. No skins of this kind obtained in summer may be prepared before the ice has formed and the first seal has been caught with the harpoon. Later on, as soon as the first walrus has been taken, the work must again stop until autumn comes round. Hence all families are eager to finish the work on deerskins as fast as possible, for until that is done the walrus season may not begin.714 The Greenlanders are careful not to [pg 247] fracture the heads of seals or throw them into the sea, but pile them in a heap before the door, that the souls of the seals may not be enraged and scare their brethren from the coast.715

Annual ceremony of returning the bladders of the sea-beasts to the sea in order that the animals may come to life again

The Esquimaux about Bering Strait believe that the souls of dead sea-beasts, such as seals, walrus, and whales, remain attached to their bladders, and that by returning the bladders to the sea they can cause the souls to be reincarnated in fresh bodies and so multiply the game which the hunters pursue and kill. Acting on this belief every hunter carefully removes and preserves the bladders of all the sea-beasts that he kills; and at a solemn festival held once a year in winter these bladders, containing the souls of all the sea-beasts that have been killed throughout the year, are honoured with dances and offerings of food in the public assembly-room, after which they are taken out on the ice and thrust through holes into the water; for the simple Esquimaux imagine that the souls of the animals, in high good humour at the kind treatment they have experienced, will thereafter be born again as seals, walrus, and whales, and in that form will flock willingly to be again speared, harpooned, or otherwise done to death by the hunters. The ceremonies observed at these annual festivals of reincarnation are elaborate. The assembly-room or dancing-house (kashim, kassigim, or kassigit), in which the festival is held, consists of a spacious semi-subterranean chamber entered by a tunnel, which leads down to a large round cellar under the floor of the house. From the cellar you ascend into the assembly-room through a hole in the floor. Wooden benches run round the apartment, which is lit by lamps. An opening in the roof serves at once as a window and a chimney. Unmarried men sleep in the assembly-room at all times; they have no other home. The festival is commonly held in December, but it may fall as late as January. It lasts several days. When the time is come [pg 248] to celebrate it, each hunter brings into the assembly-room the inflated bladders of all the seals, walrus, and whales that he has killed during the year. These are tied by the necks in bunches and hung up on seal spears, which are stuck in a row in the wall some six or eight feet above the floor. Here food and water are offered to them, or rather to the spirits of the animals which are supposed to be present in the bladders; and the spirits signify their acceptance of the offering by causing the bladders to swing to and fro, a movement which is really produced by a man sitting in a dark corner, who pulls a string attached to the bladders. Further, the bladders are fumigated with torches of wild parsnip stalks, the aromatic smoke and red flames of which are believed to be well-pleasing to the souls of the animals dangling in the bladders. Moreover to amuse the souls men execute curious dances before them to the music of drums. First the dancers move slowly with a jerky action from side to side; then they gallop obliquely with arms tossed up and down; and lastly they hop and jump, always keeping perfect time to the beat of the drums. The dance is supposed to imitate the movements of seals and walrus; and again the spirits signify their pleasure by making the bladders swing backwards and forwards. During the continuance of the festival no loud noises may be made in the assembly-room for fear of alarming the souls of the animals in the bladders; if any person makes a noise by accident, all the men present raise a chorus of cries in imitation of the notes of the eider duck to let the souls of the animals think that the unseemly disturbance proceeds from the birds and not from the people. Further, so long as the festival lasts, no wood may be cut with an iron axe in the village, the men must keep rigidly apart from the women, and no female above the age of puberty may come near the bladders suspended in the assembly-room, the reason assigned being that such women are unclean and might offend the sensitive souls of the sea-beasts in the bladders. But immature girls, being untainted by the pollution which attaches to adult women, may go about the bladders freely. The last and crowning scene of the festival takes place at night or just at sunrise. The spears [pg 249] with the bladders attached to them are passed out by the shaman into the open air through the smoke-hole in the roof. When all are outside, a huge torch of wild parsnip stalks is lighted; the chief shaman takes it on his shoulder, and runs with it as fast as he can across the snow and out on the ice. Behind him troop all the men carrying each his spear with the bladders of the sea-beasts dangling and flapping from it; and in the rear race the women, children, and old men, howling, screaming and making a great uproar. In the darkness the lurid flame of the torch shoots high into the air, casting a red glare over the snowy landscape and lighting up the swarm of fantastic, fur-clad figures that stream along in wild excitement. Arrived at a hole, which had been cut on purpose in the sea-ice, the shaman plants his burning torch beside it in the snow, and every man as he comes up rips open his bladders and thrusts them, one after the other, into the water under the ice. This ends the ceremony. The souls of the dead seals, walrus, and whales, are now ready to be born again in the depths of the sea. So all the people return contented to the village. At St. Michael the men who have thrust the bladders under the ice are obliged on their return to leap through a fire of wild parsnip stalks, probably as a mode of ceremonial purification; for after the dance and the offering of food at the festival the chief shaman passes a lighted torch of parsnip stalks round the assembly-room and the dancers, for the express purpose of purifying them and averting any evil influence that might bring sickness or ill luck on the hunters.716

Fish treated with respect by fishing tribes. The Peruvian Indians worshipped the various sorts of fish which they caught. Fish treated with respect by the North American Indians. Herring respected by European fishermen. Compensation made to fish for catching them

For like reasons, a tribe which depends for its subsistence, chiefly or in part, upon fishing is careful to treat the fish with every mark of honour and respect. The Indians of Peru “worshipped the whale for its monstrous greatness. Besides this ordinary system of worship, which prevailed [pg 250] throughout the coast, the people of different provinces adored the fish that they caught in greatest abundance; for they said that the first fish that was made in the world above (for so they named Heaven) gave birth to all other fish of that species, and took care to send them plenty of its children to sustain their tribe. For this reason they worshipped sardines in one region, where they killed more of them than of any other fish; in others, the skate; in others, the dogfish; in others, the golden fish for its beauty; in others, the crawfish; in others, for want of larger gods, the crabs, where they had no other fish, or where they knew not how to catch and kill them. In short, they had whatever fish was most serviceable to them as their gods.”717 The Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia think that when a salmon is killed its soul returns to the salmon country. Hence they take care to throw the bones and offal into the sea, in order that the soul may reanimate them at the resurrection of the salmon. Whereas if they burned the bones the soul would be lost, and so it would be quite impossible for that salmon to rise from the dead.718 In like manner the Otawa Indians of Canada, believing that the souls of dead fish passed into other bodies of fish, never burned fish bones, for fear of displeasing the souls of the fish, who would come no more to the nets.719 The Hurons also refrained from throwing fish bones into the fire, lest the souls of the fish should go and warn the other fish not to let themselves be caught, since the Hurons would burn their bones. Moreover, they had men who preached to the fish and persuaded them to come and be caught. A good preacher was much sought after, for they thought that the exhortations of a clever man had a great effect in drawing the fish to the nets. In the Huron fishing village where the French missionary Sagard stayed, the preacher to the [pg 251] fish prided himself very much on his eloquence, which was of a florid order. Every evening after supper, having seen that all the people were in their places and that a strict silence was observed, he preached to the fish. His text was that the Hurons did not burn fish bones. “Then enlarging on this theme with extraordinary unction, he exhorted and conjured and invited and implored the fish to come and be caught and to be of good courage and to fear nothing, for it was all to serve their friends who honoured them and did not burn their bones.”720 At Bogadjim in German New Guinea an enchanter is employed to lure the fish to their doom. He stands in a canoe on the beach with a decorated fish-basket beside him, and commands the fish to come from all quarters to Bogadjim.721 When the Aino have killed a sword-fish, they thank the fish for allowing himself to be caught and invite him to come again.722 Among the Nootka Indians of British Columbia it was formerly a rule that any person who had partaken of bear's flesh must rigidly abstain from eating any kind of fish for a term of two months. The motive for the abstinence was not any consideration for the health of the eater, but “a superstitious belief, that should any of their people after tasting bear's flesh, eat of fresh salmon, cod, etc., the fish, though at ever so great a distance off, would come to the knowledge of it, and be so much offended thereat, as not to allow themselves to be taken by any of the inhabitants.”723 The disappearance of herring from the sea about Heligoland in 1530 was attributed by the fishermen to the misconduct of two lads who had whipped a freshly-caught herring and then flung it back into the sea.724 A similar disappearance of the herrings from the Moray Firth, in the reign of Queen Anne, was set down by some people to a breach of the Sabbath which had been committed by the fishermen, while others opined that it was due to a quarrel [pg 252] in which blood had been spilt in the sea.725 For Scotch fishermen are persuaded that if blood be drawn in a quarrel on the coast where herring are being caught, the shoal will at once take its departure and not return for that season at least. West Highland fishermen believe that every shoal of herring has its leader which it follows wherever he goes. This leader is twice as big as an ordinary herring, and the fishermen call it the king of herring. When they chance to catch it in their nets they put it back carefully into the sea; for they would esteem it petty treason to destroy the royal fish.726 The natives of the Duke of York Island annually decorate a canoe with flowers and ferns, lade it, or are supposed to lade it, with shell-money, and set it adrift to compensate the fish for their fellows who have been caught and eaten.727 When the Tarahumares of Mexico are preparing to poison the waters of a river for the purpose of stupefying and catching the fish, they take the precaution of first making offerings to the Master of the Fish by way of payment for the fish of which they are about to bereave him. The offerings consist of axes, hats, blankets, girdles, pouches, and especially knives and strings of beads, which are hung to a cross or a horizontal bar set up in the middle of the river. However, the Master of the Fish, who is thought to be the oldest fish, does not long enjoy these good things; for next morning the owners of the various articles remove them from the river and appropriate them to their usual secular purposes.728 It is especially necessary to treat the first fish caught with consideration in order to conciliate the rest of the fish, whose conduct may be supposed to be influenced by the reception given to those of their kind which were the first to be taken. Accordingly the Maoris always put back into the sea the first fish caught, “with a prayer that it may tempt other fish to come and be caught.”729 Among the Baganda “the first fish taken were [pg 253] treated ceremonially: some the fisherman took to the god Mukasa; the remainder his wife cooked, and he and she both partook of them, and he afterwards jumped over her.”730

Ceremonious treatment of the first fish of the season

Still more stringent are the precautions taken when the fish are the first of the season. On salmon rivers, when the fish begin to run up the stream in spring, they are received with much deference by tribes who, like the Indians of the Pacific Coast of North America, subsist largely upon a fish diet. To some of these tribes the salmon is what corn is to the European, rice to the Chinese, and seals to the Esquimaux. Plenty of salmon means abundance in the camp and joy at the domestic hearth; failure of the salmon for a single season means famine and desolation, silence in the village, and sad hearts about the fire.731 Accordingly in British Columbia the Indians used to go out to meet the first fish as they came up the river: “They paid court to them, and would address them thus: ‘You fish, you fish; you are all chiefs, you are; you are all chiefs.’ ”732 Amongst the Thlinkeet or Tlingit of Alaska the first halibut of the season is carefully handled and addressed as a chief, and a festival is given in his honour, after which the fishing goes on.733 Among the tribes of the Lower Fraser River when the first sockeye-salmon of the season has been caught, the fisherman carries it to the chief of his tribe, who delivers it to his wife. She prays, saying to the salmon, “Who has brought you here to make us happy? We are thankful to your chief for sending you.” When she has cut and roasted the salmon according to certain prescribed rules, the whole tribe is invited and partakes of the fish, after they have purified themselves by drinking a decoction of certain plants which is regarded as a medicine for cleansing the people. But widowers, widows, menstruous women, and youths may not eat of this particular salmon. Even later, when the fish have become plentiful and these ceremonies are dispensed with, the same classes of [pg 254] persons are not allowed to eat fresh salmon, though they may partake of the dried fish. The sockeye-salmon must always be looked after carefully. Its bones have to be thrown into the river, after which the fish will revive and return to its chief in the west. Whereas if the fish are not treated with consideration, they will take their revenge, and the careless fisherman will be unlucky.734 Among the Songish or Lkungen tribe of Vancouver Island it is a rule that on the day when the first salmon have been caught, the children must stand on the beach waiting for the boats to return. They stretch out their little arms and the salmon are heaped on them, the heads of the fish being always kept in the direction in which the salmon are swimming, else they would cease to run up the river. So the children carry them and lay them on a grassy place, carefully keeping the heads of the salmon turned in the same direction. Round the fish are placed four flat stones, on which the plant hog's wort (Peucedanum leiocarpum, Nutt.), red paint, and bulrushes are burnt as an offering to the salmon. When the salmon have been roasted each of the children receives one, which he or she is obliged to eat, leaving nothing over. But grown people are not allowed to eat the fish for several days. The bones of the salmon that the children have eaten may not touch the ground. They are kept in dishes, and on the fourth day an old woman, who pretends to be lame, gathers them in a huge basket and throws them into the sea.735 The Tsimshian Indians of British Columbia observe certain ceremonies when the first olachen fish of the season are caught. The fish are roasted on an instrument of elder-berry wood, and the man who roasts them must wear his travelling dress, mittens, cape, and so forth. While this is being done the Indians pray that plenty of olachen may come to their fishing-ground. The fire may not be blown up, and in eating the fish they [pg 255] may not cool it by blowing nor break a single bone. Everything must be neat and clean, and the rakes used for catching the fish must be kept hidden in the house.736 In spring, when the winds blow soft from the south and the salmon begin to run up the Klamath river, the Karoks of California dance for salmon, to ensure a good catch. One of the Indians, called the Kareya or God-man, retires to the mountains and fasts for ten days. On his return the people flee, while he goes to the river, takes the first salmon of the catch, eats some of it, and with the rest kindles the sacred fire in the sweating-house. “No Indian may take a salmon before this dance is held, nor for ten days after it, even if his family are starving.” The Karoks also believe that a fisherman will take no salmon if the poles of which his spearing-booth is made were gathered on the river-side, where the salmon might have seen them. The poles must be brought from the top of the highest mountain. The fisherman will also labour in vain if he uses the same poles a second year in booths or weirs, “because the old salmon will have told the young ones about them.”737 Among the Indians of the Columbia River, “when the salmon make their first appearance in the river, they are never allowed to be cut crosswise, nor boiled, but roasted; nor are they allowed to be sold without the heart being first taken out, nor to be kept over night, but must be all consumed or eaten the day they are taken out of the water. All these rules are observed for about ten days.”738 They think that if the heart of a fish were eaten by a stranger at the beginning of the season, they would catch no more fish. Hence, they roast and eat the hearts themselves.739 There is a favourite fish of the Aino which appears in their rivers about May and June. They prepare for the fishing by observing rules of ceremonial purity, and when they have gone out to fish, the women at [pg 256] home must keep strict silence or the fish would hear them and disappear. When the first fish is caught he is brought home and passed through a small opening at the end of the hut, but not through the door; for if he were passed through the door, “the other fish would certainly see him and disappear.”740 This may partly explain the custom observed by other savages of bringing game in certain cases into their huts, not by the door, but by the window, the smoke-hole, or by a special opening at the back of the hut.741